This analysis begins with an analysis of material conditions, taking at its starting point the necessary economic activities required by human society to provide for its material needs. The form of economic organization, or mode of production, is understood to be the basis from which the majority of other social phenomena — including social relations, political and legal systems, morality and ideology — arise (or at the least by which they are greatly influenced). These social relations form the superstructure, for which the economic system forms the base. As the forces of production, most notably technology, improve, existing forms of social organization become inefficient and stifle further progress.

These inefficiencies manifest themselves as social contradictions in society in the form of class struggle. Under the capitalist mode of production, this struggle materializes between the minority (the bourgeoisie) who own the means of production, and the vast majority of the population (the proletariat) who produce goods and services. Taking the idea that social change occurs because of the struggle between different classes within society who are under contradiction against each other, the Marxist analysis leads to the conclusion that capitalism oppresses the proletariat, which leads to a proletarian revolution.

Marxism views the socialist system as being prepared by the historical development of capitalism. Capitalism according to Marxist theory can no longer sustain the living standards of the population due to its need to compensate for falling rates of profit by driving down wages, cutting social benefits and pursuing military aggression. The socialist system would succeed capitalism as humanity's mode of production through workers' revolution. According to Marxism, Socialism is a historical necessity (but not an inevitability).

In a socialist society private property in the means of production would be superseded by co-operative ownership. A socialist economy would not base production on the creation of private profits, but would instead base production and economic activity on the criteria of satisfying human needs - that is, production would be carried out directly for use.[citation needed]
Eventually, socialism would give way to a communist stage of history: a classless, stateless system based on common ownership and free-access, superabundance and maximum freedom for individuals to develop their own capacities and talents. As a political movement, Marxism advocates the creation of such a society by way of the following,


Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

Abolition of all right of inheritance.

Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.

Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.

Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country.

Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form and combination of education with industrial production.

Marxism is certainly the dominant current on the left, some would even claim that it is impossible to be a real socialist unless you are a Marxist. For a socialist to question Marxism can sometimes be regarded as a form of heresy, it can stir up feelings akin to those of a Christian Union member who is confronted by a communion chewing satanist.
And the religious similarity does not end there. How many of us have not come across the sort of Marxist who answers a difficult question with a one or two line quotation from Karl? It need not even have any particular relevance, just as the born again Christian plucks quotes randomly from the Bible. But you are being dared to disagree with the great man himself and if you do you aren't a good Marxist, and if you aren't a good Marxist your socialism is at best weak and at worst quite suspect.

To even suggest that Marxism has failed can lead to a rolling of the eyes and a dismissal of one's case as ignorant, revisionist, utopian, reformist, or what ever insult you fancy yourself. It is as if some people can not see that the organised revolutionary left today is at its weakest for many years. It is not so much a question of the triumph of capitalism, however, as the failure of most of the ideologies of socialism. The collapse of both old style Labourism and the USSR has left the vast bulk of the left confused and demoralised, either dead, dying or repeating decades old slogans as if oblivious to all the changes that have happened since.

The left, for the most part, consisted of those who wanted to liberate the rest of us. There were two distinct flavours, Labour parties that said elect us to office and we will gradually abolish capitalism for you. I won't go into their politics as most of them have not claimed to be Marxist since the time before World War One.
The bulk of the Marxist left came to consist of supporters of the Bolshevik tradition, divided - like the flavours of Heinz soup - into 57 varieties. Like the Labour parties they promised that if we put them into power they would sort out the problem for us. They may have recognised that the creation of socialism would first require the overthrow of capitalism but in power they have been every bit as anti-working class as the social democrats were, perhaps even more so. Their idea of building socialism after the revolution included smashing all working class organisation outside the control of their party - from factory committees to trade unions. This side of the revolution they spent more time squabbling over who was the real vanguard than anything else.

The conflict between Marxism and anarchism occurred over the question of the state. Could socialism be introduced by a minority, either using the existing state, or using one of their own creation after a revolution as the Marxists claim, or could socialism only be introduced through the actions of the working class itself? Now after the collapse of the eastern block and of the left inside the Labour parties it is clear that the statist path to socialism is a failure. Unfortunately such was the ideological dominance achieved by Marxism in the period after World War Two that for many this signals the end of socialism itself.

With the exception of small handfuls like the Dutch council communists or American DeLeonists, there are very few Marxists today who do not also support Leninism and the Bolshevik tradition. Therefore it is not unreasonable to look at the record of the Bolsheviks as representing Marxism in action.

The Russian revolution of 1917 has been a subject of key importance for over three quarters of a century now, for two reasons. The first reason is that for the first time in history a working class revolution succeeded in ousting the old ruling class. The second reason is that after the old ruling class was ousted a new class came to power. Those of us who want to make a revolution today must understand where the successes and failures of the past came from.

The Russian revolution demonstrated that it was possible for the working class to take over the running of the economy and to bring down their old rulers, not once but twice in a single year. After the February revolution of 1917 the workers entered into a period of almost constant struggle with the state and the bosses. At the start of this period many workers supported the Kerensky government. This struggle changed their attitudes on a mass scale and gave them the confidence to try to overturn all of the old order and privilege. Committees sprung up in the factories and the armed forces. In the run up to October the workers had already taken control of most of the factories. The purpose of the October revolution was to smash the state, destroying the power of the bosses to use armed force to recover their property.

There were several organisations arguing for a workers revolution in this period. This included many anarchists. They were however much fewer in number than the Bolshevik party which came to claim the revolution as its legacy alone. During the 1905 revolution the anarchists had raised the slogan "All power to the soviets", at the time this was opposed by what became the Bolshevik party but in 1917 they used this slogan to gain mass support. Other Marxists at the time were, incorrectly to accuse the Bolsheviks as having abandoned Marxism for Anarchism but as events were to show they had done no such thing.

The revolution was made by no single organisation, but rather was the work of the working class of Russia. But as usual it was the victors who were to write history, and Bolshevik history tends to be rather selective. Two small points to illustrate this.... how many of today's Marxists know that during the October revolution 4 anarchists were members of the Revolutionary Military Committee that co-ordinated the military side of the revolution, or that it was an anarchist sailor from the Kronstadt naval base led the delegation which dissolved the constituent assembly?

After October the working class of the Russia set about the process of building the new society on the ruins of the old. If they had succeeded there would be little need for this meeting today. However within a few short years the revolution had collapsed. The old bosses never came back as a class, although many individuals returned. Instead a new class of rulers arose, one which successfully incorporated many of the revolutionaries of 1917. If we are really to learn from history, then for socialists today there is a pressing task to understand not only why the revolution failed but also why it failed in such a manner. The fact the patient died is now obvious, the question today is what it died of.

Many socialists have tried to explain this degeneration of the revolution as a product of a unique set of circumstances, comprising the backward state of the USSR and the heavy toll inflicted by three years of civil war and western intervention. According to this theory the Bolsheviks were forced to take dictatorial measures in order to preserve the revolution. These were intended as emergency measures only and would have been repealed later but for Stalin's rise to power in the 20's. This interpretation of history presents the Bolsheviks as helpless victims of circumstances.

This is not a view anarchists accept. It is a view that falls beneath even a casual look at what occurred in the USSR between 1917 and 1921. It also collapses when you look at what Leninist ideology had stood for before and after the revolution. We instead lay the blame at the feet of Lenin and the Bolshevik party. The degeneration was part and parcel of the policies of the Bolsheviks.

What actually happened in this period was the replacement of all the organs of workers democracy and self-management with Bolshevik imposed state rule. One example of many is given by the factory committees. These were groups of workers elected at most factories before, during and after the October revolution. The delegates to these committees were mandatable and recallable. They were elected initially in order to prevent the individual bosses from sabotaging equipment. They quickly attempted to expanded their scope to cover the complete administration of the workplace and displaced the individual managers. As each workplace relied on many others to supply raw materials, power and to take their products on to the next stage of production the Factory Committees tried to federate in November 1917.

They were prevented from doing so by the Bolsheviks through the trade union bureaucracy. The planned 'All Russian Congress of Factory Committees" never took place. Instead the Bolshevik party decided to set up the "All Russian council of workers control", with only 25% of the delegates coming from the factory committees. In this way the creative energy of Russian workers which would have resulted in a co-ordinating centre not under Bolshevik control was blocked in favour of an organisation the party could control. This body was in itself stillborn, it only met once. In any case it was soon absorbed by the Supreme Economic Council set up in November 1917 which was attached to the Council of Peoples Commissars, itself entirely made up of Bolshevik party members.

So within a few short months of October the Bolsheviks had taken control of the economy out of the hands of the working class and into the hands of the Bolshevik party. This was before the civil war, at a time when the workers had showed themselves capable of making a revolution ....but according to the Bolsheviks incapable of running the economy. The basis of the Bolshevik attack on the factory committees was simple, the Bolsheviks wanted the factories to be owned and managed by the state, the factory committees wanted the factories to be owned and managed by the workers.

There were many anarchists involved in the factory committee movement at the time, mainly through the K.A.S., the Confederation of Anarcho-Syndicalists. In some areas they were the dominant influence in the factories. The influence of the KAS was to grow rapidly in the unions, to the point where the Bolsheviks started to physically suppress its activists in 1918. At the first All-Russian council of trade unions the anarcho-syndicalists had delegates representing 75,000 workers. Their resolution calling for real workers control and not state control was defeated by an alliance of the Bolshevik, Menshevik and Social-Revolutionary Party delegates. By the end of 1918 workers control was replaced with individual management of the factories (by Bolshevik decree) and the KAS had been weakened by armed Cheka raids and the closing down of its national publication in April and May 1918.

All this occurred before the Civil war and the allied intervention attempted to smash the revolution. The civil war was to inflict terrible suffering on the Soviet Union as the combined forces of White generals and 17 foreign armies captured up to 60% of the land area and threatened to capture Petrograd. It also provided the excuse the Bolsheviks were to use for the suppression of workers control, but as we have seen this was a process that was already under way.

The civil war greatly weakened the ability of the working class to resist the further undermining of the gains they had made in 1917. During the civil war emphasis was placed on the need for unity to defeat the Whites. After the civil war a much weakened working class found itself faced with a complete state structure armed with all the repression apparatus of the modern state. Many of the dissident left wing activists had been jailed or executed by the Bolsheviks. In 1921 at the end of the civil war only a fresh revolution could have set the USSR back on the path towards socialism.

The important point is that the repression of workers democracy by the Bolsheviks was as a result of Marxist or Bolshevik ideology rather then due to character flaws in the Bolshevik leadership. Lenin had a very limited view of what socialism was, seeing it as little more then an extension of state capitalism. As he put it in his own words:

"State capitalism is a complete material preparation for socialism, the threshold of socialism, a rung on the ladder of history between which and the rung called socialism there are no gaps". The introduction of piece work and one-man management in the factories in 1918 and 1919 displays a similar fixation with managerial power.

Lenin believed that ordinary workers could not run society. A party of intellectuals was necessary to do this. He thought that workers were unable to go beyond having a "trade union consciousness" because of the fact they had no time to study socialism. Once again i his own words:

"there are many....who are not enlightened socialists and cannot be such because they have to slave in the factories and they have neither the time nor the opportunity to become socialists". Briefly in 1917 Lenin was forced to acknowledge this to be wrong when he admitted that the workers were 100 times ahead of the party from February to October. But unwilling to allow the facts to get in the way of a good theory he quickly reverted to his original position.

This position was the justification for the dictatorship of the party. In a modern sense it is the justification for putting the party before all else. Some Leninists today will happily argue that a socialist should have no principles beyond building the party and that even scabbing is excusable if it is in their party's interests. Leninist organisations tend to look at struggles purely in terms of recruitment, remaining involved just long enough to pick up one or two new members, then moving on to the next one. For the Leninists the chance of a revolution being successful is mainly determined by the size of their party at the time.

The Bolsheviks saw their party as comprising all the advanced revolutionaries - the vanguard. They saw socialism as something best implemented by a professional leadership. So when they talked of dictatorship of the proletariat they did not mean the working class as a whole exercising control of society. They meant the party holding power on behalf of the working class, and in practise the leadership of the party being the ones making all the important policy decisions.

They believed the party, because of its unique position was always right and therefore it had the right to rule over all the class. So, while the Soviets had been useful to the Bolsheviks up to the October revolution, after the revolution they became a threat. They could and did decide policy which would contradict the party line. Most of them were not sufficiently under the control of the party, as they contained many other revolutionaries also. So the Bolsheviks proceeded to turn them into organs which did little more than rubberstamp party decisions.

By 1918 this process had been advanced to the extent that the decision to sign the treaty of Brest-Livtosk, which surrendered a huge area of the revolutionary Ukraine to Germany and the Austro-Hungarian empire, was made at a party Central Committee meeting. Indeed the central committee was split, the decision going through only by one vote. The Soviets had no role at all in this decision making. This was long before the civil war and the famine was to be used as an excuse for such manoeuvres.

The success and failure throws up all the questions that still separate anarchism from all other socialist theories. Where do revolutionary ideas come from? Lenin was quite clear on this in 'What Is To Be Done'. "History in all countries attests that, on it's own, the working class cannot go beyond the level of trade union consciousness, the realisation that they must combine into trade unions, fight against the employers, force the governments to pass such laws as benefit the conditions of the workers....As for the socialist doctrine, it was constructed out of the philosophical, historical and economic theories elaborated by educated members of the ruling class by intellectuals".

Anarchists on the other hand point to the creative energy of the working class, the creation of Soviets in 1905 and of the Hungarian Workers Councils in 1956, for instance, were spontaneous events unguided by any organisation.

Leninists see their party as representing the working class. This was the justification for the suppression of all rivals in 1918 by the Bolsheviks and for the closing down of factions inside their own party from 1918 to 1921. Trotsky, even more then Stalin or Lenin, was the most prominent supporter of what was called the party's historical birthright. In the early 20's he was to repeatedly use this idea of the party's birthright against minority groups and individuals in the Bolshevik party. The most astounding part of this however was the willingness of the same groups and individuals to accept this silencing in the name of the party. By the 30's this whole process was to reach its logical conclusion with Stalin's show trials of many of the old Bolshevik leadership.

The right of the Bolsheviks to dictate to the class was clearly expressed in 1921, by Trotsky at the 10th party congress. In attacking a faction within the Bolshevik party he said of them "They have come out with dangerous slogans. They have made a fetish of democratic principles. They have placed the workers right to elect representatives above the party. As if the party were not entitled to assert its dictatorship even if that dictatorship temporarily clashed with the passing moods of the workers' democracy!" Here we have one of the clearest statements of the ideology behind Bolshevik practise. This is the road many of todays Marxists would like to lead us on to.

There is an entirely different project of how capitalism is to be overthrown and what is to replace it. Workers democracy is not merely icing on the cake or a step towards a workers state. We have no illusions in the neutrality of the state, no matter in whose hands power may lie. We wish to take part in the building of a workers movement not only capable of tearing down existing society but also of building a new society free of exploitation.

It is on this issue that anarchism's fundamental difference with Leninism is made clear. We agree with Lenin that authority can only be defeated by authority, that the authority of the bosses will be destroyed by the authority of the workers. We agree on the need for a lead to be given within the class. But while anarchist leadership is one of persuasion and education, the Marxist-Leninist party goes way beyond this and tries to grab power through control of the state. It seeks to exercise the authority of the party over the workers. In doing this it prepares the way for the growth of a new oppressive ruling class, as Lenin's Bolshevik party did in Russia.

There is much of use within Marxism, I do not propose to throw away the impressive economic analysis for instance, but as an ideology, as a tradition and as a guide for the future it has failed; and failed on a grand scale. Socialists must be prepared to question everything. And that includes Marxism. If the right tools are not chosen for the job, the job will not get done right.

In the 1860s the modern socialist movement was beginning to take shape. The International Working Mens' Association or First International was becoming a pole of attraction for militant workers. As the movement grew points of agreement and of disagreement between the Marxists and the Anarchists about what socialism meant and how to achieve it were becoming clear. This led to the Marxists using less than democratic means to expel the anarchists.
In 1871 the Paris Commune came into being when the workers of Paris seized their city. When they were finally defeated seven thousand Communards were dead or about to be executed. A reign of terror against the Left swept Europe. The anarchists were driven underground in country after country. This did not auger well for a rapid growth of the movement. In response to the terror of the bosses, their shooting down of strikers and protesting peasants and their suppression of the anarchist movement a small minority launched an armed campaign, known as "propaganda by deed", and killed several kings, queens, noblemen and senior politicians.

Though very understandable this drove a further wedge between the bulk of the working class and the movement. Clandestine work became the norm in many countries. Mass work within the class became increasingly difficult. The image of the madman with a bomb under his arm was born. The movement was making no significant gains.

By the turn of the century many anarchists were convinced that a new approach was needed. They called for a return to open and public militant activity among workers. The strategy they developed was syndicalism.

This is the text of a talk given to a Workers Solidarity Movement meeting. As such it represents the authors opinion alone and may be deliberately provocative in order to encourage discussion. Also it may be in note form. Still we hope you find it useful. Other talks are here
Its basic ideas revolve around organising all workers into the "one big union", keeping control in the hands of the rank & file, and opposing all attempts to create a bureaucracy of unaccountable full-time officials. Unlike other unions their belief is that the union can be used not only to win reforms from the bosses but also to overthrow the capitalist system. They hold that most workers are not revolutionaries because the structure of their unions is such that it takes the initiative away from the rank & file. Their alternative is to organise all workers into the "one big union" in preparation for the revolutionary general strike.
They established their own international organisation with the founding of the International Workers Association in Berlin in 1922. Present at that conference were the Argentine Workers Regional Organisation FORA representing 200,000 members, the Industrial Workers of the World in Chile representing 20,000, the Union for Syndicalist Propaganda in Denmark with 600, the Free Workers Union of Germany FAUD with 120,000, National Workers Secretariat of the Netherlands representing 22,500, the Italian Syndicalist Union with 500,000, the General Confederation of Workers in Portugal with 150,000, the Swedish Workers Central Organisation SAC with 32,000, the Committee for the Defence of Revolutionary Syndicalism in France [a breakaway from the CGT] with 100,000, the Federation du Battiment from Paris representing 32,000. The Spanish CNT was unable to send delegates due to the fierce class being waged in their country under the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. They did, however, join the following year.

During the 1920s the IWA expanded. More unions and propaganda groups entered into dialogue with the IWA secretariat. They were from Mexico, Uruguay, Bulgaria, Poland, Japan, Australia, South Africa, Paraguay and North Africa. Syndicalist unions outside the IWA also appeared in many countries such as the Brazilian Workers Refional Organisation and the Industrial Workers of the World in the USA. The influence of its methods, if not necessarily of its anarchist origins, was even seen in Ireland where the ITGWU throughout its existance until merged into SIPTU a few years ago carried the letters OBU on its badge. This OBU referrs to the IWW slogan of One Big Union. And let us not forget that both Connolly and Larkin were influenced by the IWW. Connolly was an organiser for their building workers union in New York state and Larkin delivered the oration at Joe Hill's funeral.

The success of the Bolsheviks did great harm to the workers movement outside Russia. Many were impressed by what was happening in Russia, Communist Parties sprang up almost everywhere. Was not the Bolshevik model proved successful? Shouldn't we copy it? This was before the reality of the Soviet dictatorship became widely known.

Nevertheless the syndicalist movement still held onto most of its support. The real danger was the rise of fascism. With the rule of Mussolini the Italian USI, the largest syndicalist union n the world, was driven underground and then out of existence. The German FAUD, Portuguese CGT, Dutch NSV, French CDSR and many more in Eastern Europe and Latin America were not able to survive the fascism and military dictatorships of the 1930s and 40s.

It was at the same time that the Spanish revolution unfolded, about which more later.

The Polish syndicalist union with 130,000 workers, the ZZZ, was on the verge of applying for membership of the IWA when it was crushed by the nazi invasion. But they did not go down without a fight. The Polish ZZZ along with the Polish Syndicalist Association took up arms against the nazis and in 1944 even managed to publish a paper called Syndicalista. In 1938 after their country being under the Salazar dictatorship the Portugese CGT could still claim 50,000 members in their now completely illegal and underground union. In Grmany over 1,000 trials for high treason were carried against militants of the FAUD. There were mass trials of FAUD members, many of whom didn't survive the concentration camps. One point I would like to mention about the Spanish CNT shows the hypocrisy of the British government which called itself anti-fascist, not only were Italian anti-fascist exiles interned on the Isle of Man but CNT members whose underground movement assisted British airmen, Jews and anti-fascists to escape through Spain to Britain were repaid at the end of the war when their names were handed over to Franco's secret police.

By the end of WWII the European syndicalist movement and the IWA was almost destroyed. The CNT was now an exile organisation. In 1951 the IWA held their first post-war congress in Toulouse. This time they were a much smaller organisation than the great movement which existed at the IWA's first congress. Nevertheless they still represented something. Delegates attended, though mostly representing very small organisations, from Cuba, Argentina, Spain, Sweden, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Britain, Bulgaria and Portugal. A message of support was received from Uruguay.

Things were not looking good for the re-emergence of anarcho-syndicalism. In Eastern Europe the Stalinists allowed no free discussion, strikes or free trade unions. Certainly not anarchist ones! In the West massive subsidies from the US and the Catholic church went to tame unions controlled by Christian Democrats and Social Democrats. meanwhile Russia did the same for their allies who controlled the French CGT, the Italian CGIL and others. The IWA, in its weakened state couldn't compete for influence. In the late 1950s the Swedish SAC withdrew from the IWA. There was now not a single functioning union in its ranks.

It staggered on as a collection of small propaganda groups and exile organisations like the Spanish and Bulgarian CNTs. Some wondered would it live much longer. But suddenly in 1977 Franco died and his regime fell. The CNT blossomed. Within a matter of months its membership leaped from a few hundred activists to 150,000. Problems later developed within the CNT and a split occurred which left us with two unions whose combined membership today probably does not reach 30,000, though not an inconsequential number when we look at our own size. The growth of the CNT put syndicalism back on the anarchist agenda. The IWA now claims four organisations which function at least partly as unions (in Brazil, Italy, France and Spain) and propaganda groups in about another dozen countries.

Outside the IWA are syndicalist unions and organisations like the 16,000 strong SAC in Sweden, the 11,000 strong OVB in the Netherlands, the Spanish CGT, the Solidarity-Unity-Democracy union in the French post office, the CRT in Switzerland, the Syndicalist Bulletin group in Britain, and others. Some are less anarchist and more reformist than others. Say what we will about them we must recognise that syndicalism is today the largest organised current in the international anarchist movement. This means it is especially important to understand them.

We do have criticisms of their politics, or more accurately lack of politics. I will only sketch this as I would prefer to see it expanded on in the discussion rather than have to keep on speaking!

Judging from their own statements, methods and propaganda they see the biggest problem in the structure of the existing unions rather than in the ideas that tie workers to authoritarian, capitalist views of the world.

Syndicalists do not create revolutionary political organisations. They want to creates industrial unions. Their stategy is a-political, in the sense that they argue that all that's essential to make the revolution is for workers to sieze the factories and the land. After that it believes that the state and all the other institutions of the ruling class will come toppling down. They do not accept that the working class must take political power. For them all power has to be immediately abolished on day one of the revolution.

Because the syndicalist organisation is the union, it organises all workers regardless of their politics. Historically many workers have joined, not because they were anarchists, but because the syndicalist union was the most militant and got the best results. Because of this tendencies always appeared that were reformist. This raises the question, in non-revolutionary times, of the conflict between being a trade union or a revolutionary organisation.... another point that can be taken up in the discussion.

Syndicalists are quite correct to emphasise the centrality of organising workers in the workplace. Critics who reject syndicalism on the grounds that allegedly it cannot organise those outside the workplace are wrong. Taking the example of anarcho-syndicalism in Spain it is clear that they could and did organise throughout the entire working class as was evidenced by the Iberian Federation of Libertarian Youth, the 'Mujeras Libres' (Free Women), and the neighbourhood organisations.

The weakness of syndicalism is rooted in its view of why workers are tied to capitalism, and its view of what is necessary to make the revolution. Spain in 1936/7 represented the highest point in anarcho-syndicalist organisation and achievement. Because of their a-politicism they were unable to develop a programme for workers' power, to wage a political battle against other currents in the workers' movement (such as reformism and Stalinism). Indeed syndicalists seem to ignore other ideas more often than combatting them. In Spain they were unable to give a lead to the entire class by fighting for complete workers' power.

Instead they got sucked into support for the Popular Front government, which in turn led to their silence and complicity when the Republican state moved against the collectives and militias. The minority in the CNT, organised around the Friends of Durruti, was expelled when they issued a proclamation calling for the workers to take absolute power (i.e. that they should refuse to share power with the bosses or the authoritarian parties).

The CNT believed that when the workers took over the means of production and distribution this would lead to "the liquidation of the bourgeois state which would die of asphyxiation". History teaches us different. In a situation of dual power it is very necessary to smash the state. No ruling class ever leaves the stage of history voluntarily.

In contrast to this the Friends of Durruti were clear that, and this is a quote from their programme 'Towards a Fresh Revolution, "to beat Franco we need to crush the bourgeoisie and its Stalinist and Socialist allies. The capitalist state must be destroyed totally and there must be installed workers' power depending on rank & file committees. A-political anarchism has failed". The political confusion of the CNT leadership was such that they attacked the idea of the workers siezing power as "evil" and leading to an "anarchist dictatorship".

The syndicalist movement, organised in the International Workers Association and outside it, still refuses to admit the CNT was wrong to "postpone" the revolution and enter the government. They attempt to explain away this whole episode as being due to "exceptional circumstances" that "will not occur again". Because they refuse to admit that a mistake of historic proportions was made, there is no reason to supopose that they would not repeat it (should they get a chance).

Despite our criticisms we should recognise that the syndicalist unions, where they still exist, are far more progressive than any other union. Not only do they create democratic unions and create an atmosphere where anarchist ideas are listened to with respect but they also organise and fight in a way that breaks down the divisions into leaders and led, doers and watchers.

There is no one Marxist theory of the state, different currents within Marxism have developed their own variants. However all share the idea that the State can, and must, be used as a means towards achieving the classless society. There are very few - apart from whatever Trotskyist groups are still burrowing away in the British Labour Party - in the social democratic parties who still claim to be Marxists. As to the few Marxist social democrats, we don't need to analyse their theory of the state in any great detail. They have had the best part of a century to show us what their politics mean in practice. Equally so with the Stalinists. Their deeds have spoken a lot louder than any number of books, pamphlets or speeches full of flowery language.
The main revolutionary Marxist current around today is Trotskyism. The biggest of the Trotskyist internationals is the United Secretariat of the Fourth International (known in Trot circles as USec). Its leading theoretician is Ernest Mandel. Where I put forward a Marxist position it is that put forward by Mandel in a talk given to the Belgian National Federation of Socialist Students and later issued as a pamphlet by the American Socialist Workers Party with the title "The Marxist Theory of the State". Tonight I will concentrate on the fundamental purpose of the State, and not on those socially useful services it provides as an additional function as these are not essential to its purpose nor are they provided by all modern states.

The starting position is common to both anarchism and Marxism, that the State did not always exist. Mandel goes on to say, and we would not disagree with him, that the state has a special characteristic which is "the exercise of certain functions is removed from the community as a whole to become the exclusive perogative of a tiny fraction of members of this community". In other words the emergence of the state is a product of the division of society into rulers and ruled.

This is the text of a talk given to a Workers Solidarity Movement meeting. As such it represents the authors opinion alone and may be deliberately provocative in order to encourage discussion. Also it may be in note form. Still we hope you find it useful. Other talks are here
Two examples will illustrate this development. The first example is the question of arms. In primitive societies all adult men (and sometimes all adult men and women) had the right to bear arms. As the class division emerged and the newly emerging rulers wanted to make it more difficult to challenge their power the community as whole lost their right to bear arms and instead this became the particular perogative of special bodies under the control of the rulers - police and army. It was Engels who said that the state is, in the final analysis, nothing other than a body of armed men.
The second example is that of justice. In primitive societies there were no legal codes, partly because writing had yet to be invented. However, apart from quarrels decided by families or among individuals themselves, only tribal or collective assemblies were empowered to render judgements. There were no special groups of individuals who had to the right to dispense justice. The idea that certain men or women, detached from the tribe or collectivity, had the right to judge would seem to members of a society based on the tribe or clan just as nonsensical as as the reverse appears to most of our contemporaries.

To sum up, at a certain point in human history, before we were divided into classes, the basic functions of the state were exercised collectively by all adult members of the community. It is only with birth of class society that these functions are taken away from the mass and reserved to a minority who exercise these functions in a special way. This special way is that these functions are primarily used to defend and further the interests of the ruling class.

While the modern capitalist state is far more developed and much better at public relations that the state of fuedal times, it has the same essential purpose. Although there is universal suffrage in perhaps half the world, society has no more control than it did 400 years ago. While governments may come and go with each general election the state remains. Its power is a permanent power. The general staff of the army, the special troops, the police, the Special Branch, the top administrators of government departments (often called the "key" civil servants), the national security bodies, the judges, and so on - all all free of the influence of elections. Once in you get to stay in unless other elements within the structure want you out for reasons of their own. Think about the so-called independence of judges, what most of these reactionary old bastards are independent of is any requirement to reflect the wishes of the community they claim to serve.

Anarchists and Marxists do agree that

the state did not always exist
it serves the interests of a ruling class which needs special means because it is a minority
it represents the interests of the ruling class as a whole, it serves as a sort of executive committee for them.
it holds a monopoly of force to defend and further the interests of the rulers
it is not possible to place it under a genuinely democratic control. (The notion of the vote being the highest stage of decision making is a deliberately fostered illusion in a society where real power ultimately lies in the boardrooms of big business. In this regard we need only remember how the big bosses organised an investment strike in Britain in 1974 to warn against the Labour Party getting carried away with its reforming ideas, or how the Chilean economy was destabilised to prepare the way for Pinochet's CIA backed coup in 1973.)
Mandel accepts that the state is part and parcel of the division of society into classes when he says "As long as the state exists it will be proof of the fact that social conflicts remain".

Before moving on to the most important question, that of whether the working class needs a state, there is one point that must be stated. If the capitalist state is fundamentally an instrument in the service of the ruling class, does that we mean we should be indifferent to to the particular form the State takes - parliamentary democracy, military dictatorship, religious fundamentalist, fascist dictatorship? Certainly not. The more freedoms we have to organise and explain our ideas, the more we can do to bring the advent of anarchism that bit closer. We also, of course, wish to enjoy as much freedom as we can because we find freedom a good thing in itself. That is why anarchists must defend what democratic rights we have against every and all attempts to restrict such rights (or to be more accurate 'concessions' as we have no absolute rights under capitalism). This means fighting anti-strike laws, fighting increased police powers and the institution of a "strong state", and it means fight fascism.

To return to the question, Mandel says, and I quote "One can always resort to a hypocritical attitude, as do certain anarchists: Let's abolish the State and call the people who exercise State functions by another name. But that's a purely verbal opposition, a paper"abolition" of the State." As far as he is concerned while there remains shortage or scarcity of goods the State is necessary, such a society cannot function without a State. The State quickly jumps from being the mechanism which allows a small minority to rule to being, and again I quote directly from him, "people who regulate conflicts - that's what the State is".

As a good and longstanding Leninist he sees the working class as ignorant, as the "stupid classes" who are incapable of resolving differences among themselves until we reach the stage where society can produce an abundance for all and so eliminate conflict. It would be easy to write pages upon pages disproving this contention. While all economic conflict will not disappear until there is a society of abundance (which on a world scale capitalism has developed the productive capability for), such conflict can certainly be managed, reduced and minimised. The experience of the industrial and agricultural collectives which affected the lives of at least seven million Spaniards in the 1930s rubbishes his argument.

All the arguments thrown up by Mandel for a so-called workers state are false. They talk of the need for organising the economy, for national defence, for defence against internal counter-revolutionaries, for watchdogs to oversee the industries, for a special body to dispossess the ruling class of its wealth and power. There is not one among these tasks that can not be carried out by bodies under the direct control of the working class and its mandated delegates. And to suggest this is not to call the state by another name, one more acceptable to anarchists. For no statism is acceptable to us. The essence of statism is the removal of powers that should belong to the community as whole (though they may for reasons of efficiency delegate their actual implementation), is their removal into the hands of a tiny minority who claim to act on our behalf and in our interests but who are not under our direct control. In other words it continues the division into rulers and ruled.

Marxists wish to centralise all executive and legislative power in the hands of a tiny minority. They say it and they have done when given a chance. We are all aware of how they behaved and put their politics into practice at the time of their crowning glory - the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia. 99% of contemporary Marxists take their inspiration from the Bolsheviks. The only exceptions I know about are the very small groups of Luxemburgists, council communists and non-Leninists such as Red Action. And none of these has yet stated clearly where they stand on the question of the State except to say they want their State to be more democratic that that of Lenin, but they have yet to say how they will do this.

As I have said, Mandel, though I very much doubt he would put it in these words, sees the working class as ignorant and possibly even stupid. His Trotskyist state will educate them until they are capable of running their own lives and the society they live in. He puts it like this "The withering away of the State should be conceived of as self-management and self-government of producers and citizens which expands more and more until, under conditions of material abundance and a high cultural level of the entire society, the latter becomes structured into self-governing producer-consumer communities".

And how will he stop his "workers state" becoming another Stalinist-type bureaucracy which turns itself into a fully fledged ruling class. Easy. Just obey the five rules of Mandel:

1. The bodies that make decisions shall also implement them, public officials will be elected "to the greatest extent", and no excessive salaries will be paid.

2. Respect the democratic character of workers' self-management committees.

3. Freedom of press and organisation for all parties who respect the government's laws, and independence of the trade unions from the state - with the right to strike.

4. Decision making bodies to have full freedom of debate and be open o public view.

5. Respect the principal of a written law.

We can discuss these so-called protections in the discussion. The most important point is that, like it or not, Mandel has admitted that his State will be different and apart from the organs of the working class. That is why these protections are needed. Unwittingly he has agreed with us when we say that the State does not just serve a ruling class, but one which is a minority. If the working class are running the show why wold thy need trade unions and right to strike, who would they go on strike against? The majority has no need of such undemocratic structures to protect itself.

'Liberty without socialism is poverty and injustice. Socialism without liberty is tyranny and brutality'
(Bakunin)

Bakunin had a vision of an alternative way to run society and it is a vision that we share today. I want the replacement of the current economic system, a system based on profit and hierarchy, with a system based on need and freedom. I don't believe the current system can be reformed to make it more human. In different ways, and on various levels, the political work I do is aimed at creating the possibility of revolution. Revolutionary change is not as unusual as is often thought; in 1974 we had the Portuguese revolution, in 1979 Iranian Revolution, in 1979 Nicaragua, in the eighties we saw the collapse of the Soviet Union.

What is rarer is the type of revolution that anarchist are seeking. That is a revolution that is democratic, that is organised by the bottom up, that rejects leadership of parties or individuals, that puts in place democratic structures with which to run society.

For this revolution to happen people have to believe that they have the power to bring about change

They have to be able to organise effectively.
They have to have skill and experience.
They also need to have an idea not only of what they are fighting against, but also what they want to put in its place.
Why do you need Organisation

In 1991 with four others I joined the WSM. At that time, the WSM was just two people. 2+4= 6 people. Not very many. Why did I bother?

I bothered because I realised that as an individual, there is very little I could do to win people to anarchism. I could try and try to convince friends and work mates, but generally that is a long and lonely process, and after a few months, or years, on my own I'd be burnt out. I didn't want my anarchism to be just pub talk. I wanted to turn my dreams into reality.

Work is easier when it is shared, when resources are pooled.

Producing a magazine, a paper, even a leaflet is a difficult task for an individual, but a lot easier for a group.

Speaking at a union or campaign meeting can be nerve-wracking, but to know that at least some people support your position, and are willing to say so, makes you feel less isolated, more confident.

Being a member of a group, no matter how small, makes it easier to get anarchist ideas across.

Being a member of an organisation means that when an issue arises that you feel is important, you can count on having others there who will work with you and the more people there are involved, the more pro-active the campaign can be.

There are many different types of organisations out there, many different flavours to choose from. All, except anarchist ones, are based on the leadership model.

The type of organisation you belong to, reflects the type of society you want to create. [In this talk I am speaking of my experience of the WSM because that is the organisation I am a member of, but the same holds true of most other anarchist organisations]

We want a society without leaders, so our organisation has no leaders.

Instead all our members are active in both the work and the decision making of the organisation.

We share the work. We take turns writing articles, editing the paper, speaking at conferences like this one. We are all involved in campaign work and in our trade unions.

There are no power positions within the WSM. Any position held within the organisation is electable and recallable and entails doing nothing more than administrative work. So for example at the moment I am the national secretary. In most other organisations that would make me the leader. In this one it means I write letters to people looking for information and I organise national meetings of the group. I can only do this job for a maximum of three years, after which I have to pass it on. If I fuck up, I can be recalled. And the same goes for Alan, who looks after our accounts, and for Andrew, Checkov, Conor and Deidre who look after our web-page.

We have written quite a bit about how we can bring about a revolutions. I don't have time to go into them all,

Capitalism is a big, worldwide system.

But it only persists because people believe there is no alternative.

And it is no coincidence that people don't imagine other ways of living.

We live in a system that excludes people from making fundamental decisions over their own lives, from participating in the societies they live in, and the elections yesterday are an example of this.

Every four years elections are held with great hype, vast amounts of press and media time are devoted to them, we are told that this is the chance to have our say, to be involved, to exercise our rights etc etc. After elections very little changes. Peoples votes didn't make a difference. The promises were betrayed. People aren't involved in making decisions about how the country is run.

Then for the next elections, they switch off, they'd decide not to take part, they ignore the process. they change the channel. More and more elections are nothing more than theatrical performances. Politics for Blair, Bush and Berlosconi is based on spin, on manipulating the media or on owning it. Elections are irrelevant when it comes to changing the system, but they are very relevant to maintaining it.

And this is where anarchists and anarchist organisations come in.

There is a battle of ideas out there. Ideas about what is possible, about what is permitted, and about what politics is.

The anarchist approach is radically different. We don't play their game, because we know we can never win it. We change the rules. It is a approach that challenges the status quo.

But as I said. It is a battle of ideas.

If we don't get our ideas out there, they will be ignored.

And the only choice on offer will remain the choice that Bakunin spoke of in 1880. Between tyranny and injustice and slavery and brutality.

That is no choice. It's not the world I want to live in. That's why I joined an anarchist organisation and I urge you all to do the same.

In his 1966 novel, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, science-fiction Grand Master Robert A. Heinlein relates how the inhabitants of a colony on the moon carry out a revolution with the aid of a self-aware computer.. During a discussion leading up to the start of the revolution, one of the characters, Professor De La Paz, describes his political philosophy to fellow conspirators, Manuel O' Kelly and Wyoming Knott.

De La Paz states that he is a rational anarchist:


“A rational anarchist believes that concepts such as ‘state’ and ‘society’ and ‘government’ have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame . . . as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else. But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world . . . aware that his effort will be less than perfect yet undismayed by self-knowledge of self-failure.”
Mannie: “Hear, hear!” I said. “‘Less than perfect.’ What I’ve been aiming for all my life.”

“You’ve achieved it,” said Wyoh. “Professor, your words sound good but there is something slippery about them. Too much power in the hands of individuals—surely you would not want . . well, H-missiles for example—to be controlled by one irresponsible person?”
Prof: “My point is that one person is responsible. Always. If H-bombs exist—and they do—some man controls them. In terms of morals there is no such thing as a ‘state.’ Just men. Individuals. Each responsible for his own acts.”

This concept, like many others of Heinlein is very controversial. Some people like Wyoh in the discussion preceding the above quotation look at this primarily from the 'anarchy' point of view (see Definitions), that is, that without 'government', it is assumed that there are no restraints on the action of the individual. This was carried even further by one extreme view of this philosophy which was stated by L.N. Collier on the alt.fan.heinlein newsgroup on 12-03-2000.


"Then, he's not an anarchist at all. He's not even a revolutionary. He's a self-appointed societal superego, a sublime moralist, a judge without a bench other than the one he erects for himself and looks down his nose at the rest of the world. He's old Bob: lotsa words that look pretty but don't always hold water."
It is the purpose of this article to attempt to provide a basis for a different interpretation of the concept. An interpretation which says that De La Paz was speaking literally, describing reality and not some theoretical, and utopian ideal, and especially, not the twisted concept described here.

Wyoh's reaction and Collier's extreme reaction to De La Paz's statements assumes that all individuals, without 'government and the laws created and enforced by government' would act only at the level of purely individual self-interest, or that at the very least, some individuals would behave so that without the protection of the 'government' the remainder of society would be at their mercy.. Should such an assumption be made? I would suggest that such an assumption would be valid only if we make the further assumption that there exists no other mechanism by which those individuals who do, in fact, act only in their own self-interest could be constrained to protect the majority. I will grant that many, if not most, people because of these assumptions, would probably have the same or similar reaction when presented with the term anarchy. That is, 'no government means no laws and no law enforcement which implies that everyone is on their own in a dog-eat-dog world'. This seems to be the most usual connotation of the term(8). Is this what De La Paz is suggesting? I think not. He is not discussing anarchy in its usual connotation, but instead is defining a new term, rational anarchy. But, the use of the phrases,"...self-responsible individuals" and "Each responsible for his own acts." implies that a rational anarchist recognizes some degree of constraints on his actions beyond that of pure self-interest. The Germanic derived form answerable provides, I think, a clearer connotation than does the Romance-derived form responsible.

Where do these constraints come from?

Let us examine another passage from Heinlein's perhaps most controversial book, Starship Troopers(2). Colonel Dubois, teaching Juan Rico's class in History and Moral Philosophy said:


What is ‘moral sense’? It is an elaboration of the instinct to survive. The instinct to survive is human nature itself, and every aspect of our personalities derives from it. Anything that conflicts with the survival instinct acts sooner or later to eliminate the individual and thereby fails to show up in future generations. This truth is mathematically demonstrable, every-where verifiable; it is the single eternal imperative controlling everything we do.
“But the instinct to survive,” he had gone on, “can be cultivated into motivations more subtle and much more complex than the blind, brute urge of the individual to stay alive. Young lady, what you miscalled your ‘moral instinct’ was the instilling in you by your elders of the truth that survival can have stronger imperatives than that of your own personal survival. Survival of your family, for example. Of your children, when you have them. Of your nation, if you struggle that high up the scale. And so on up. A scientifically verifiable theory of morals must be rooted in the individual’s instinct to survive—and nowhere else!— and must correctly describe the hierarchy of survival, note the motivations at each level, and resolve all conflicts.

“We have such a theory now; we can solve any moral problem, on any level. Self-interest, love of family, duty to country, responsibility toward the human race—we are even developing an exact ethic for extra-human relationships But all moral problems can be illustrated by one misquotation tation: ‘Greater love hath no man than a mother cat dying to defend her kittens.’ Once you understand the problem facing that cat and how she solved it, you will then be ready to examine yourself and learn how high up the moral ladder you are capable of climbing.

“These juvenile criminals hit a low level. Born with only the instinct for survival, the highest morality they achieve was a shaky loyalty to a peer group, a street gang. But the do-gooders attempted to ‘appeal to their better natures,’ to ‘reach them,’ to ‘spark their moral sense.’ Tosh! They had no ‘better natures’; experience taught them that what they were doing was the way to survive. The puppy never got his spanking; therefore what he did with pleasure and suc-cess must be ‘moral..

“The basis of all morality is duty, a concept with the same relation to group that self-interest has to the individual.

While the "scientifically verifible" part of the phrase, "A scientifically verifiable theory of morals" is, to the best of my knowledge, a fictional device of Heinlein's(3), I believe that it does constitute a valid "theory of morals" and one which underlies my thesis. One might also question that this theory is based on the individual's "instinct to survive", but this aspect is really unimportant. What is important is that the basis of morality as outlined here begins with the individual and the self-interest of the individual, even if it is not strictly based on the individual's survival instinct.

This passage is suggesting that an individual who has gone beyond simple self-interest is enmeshed in some hierarchy of levels where the welfare of people and groups of people beyond that purely of the individual himself is important to the self-interest of the individual. Such a hierarchy might be shown as follows:


Individual
Family
Ethnic Group
Professional Group
Altruistic (and not so altruistic) Causes
the 'State' or government
Society in general
Religion
This is only one possible hierarchy, one which is suggested by my own experience and does not necessarily apply to Heinlein's characters, Heinlein himself, or anyone else. Nor is it a necessity that the ranking of such a hierarchy be inflexible. In some matters in given situations, any one of the categories might well be shifted ahead of others. In fact, individual self-interest often manifests itself above all others for relatively minor matters.

In the quoted section above from Starship Troopers Heinlein's characters suggest that some only rise to the level of "a shaky loyalty to a peer group, a street gang." The main concept of the book itself was that a person who believed in the value of the state and society would be willing to protect and serve the state and society. I am suggesting here that such a person would see the state as an instrument of society which functions for all the levels below it, not as an end in itself which is why I placed society in general above that of state or government.

In The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, it seems clear that at least three of the levels of such a hierarchy were present and that they placed severe constraints on the colonists.


Individual
Family
Loonie Society
The individual, obviously, is always present. Mannie's devotion to his family and willingness to protect them and defend them is clearly and unambigously shown. The constraint's placed on them by their society are also demonstrated, but perhaps not so obviously. More on this later.

But, you say, there was a government in the form of the Lunar Authority. Actually, a careful reading of TMIAH shows that the Lunar Authority was not a government with respect to the colonists themselves as the following quotations show:


1) But passport system was not “illegal” as Warden’s regulations were only written law. Was announced in papers, we were given week to get passports, and at eight hundred one morning was put in effect. Some Loonies hardly ever traveled; some traveled on business; some commuted from outlying warrens or even from Luna City to Novylen or other way.
2) “Believe me, sir, I do not think it was a joke. I just have trouble grasping that your local laws permit a man to be put to death so casually . . . and for so trivial an offense.”
I sighed. Where do you start explaining when a man’s words show there isn’t anything he understands about subject, instead is loaded with preconceptions that don’t fit facts and doesn’t even know he has?
“Stu,” I said, “let’s take that piece at a time. Are no ‘local laws’ so you couldn’t be ‘put to death’ under them.

3)"We don’t have laws,” I said. “Never been allowed to. Have customs, but aren’t written and aren’t enforced—or could say they are self-enforcing because are simply way things have to be, conditions being what they are. Could say our customs are natural laws because are way people have to behave to stay alive.

and most importantly:

4)“Oh, not at all! But eliminating isn’t against some law; are no laws—except Warden’s regulations—and Warden doesn’t care what one Loonie does to another.

And it is very clear that 'law enforcement' forces, what there were, were not there for the protection of the colonists, but were bodyguards to protect the Authority officials and to insure that grain continued to arrive on Earth.

In light of these quotations, it is ridiculous to assume that De La Paz, with the help of others, was trying to create any form of anarchy as we normally think of it, because they already lived in such a state. They had 'No Government'. The result of their revolution was to form a government with laws. De La Paz attempted, (and failed), to mold its form and to keep it minimal.

As I said above, people normally fear the thought of anarchy because of the assumption that such would produce a situation in which some large part of the majority of people would be at the mercy of others. But as I also said, "... such an assumption would be valid only if we make the further assumption that there exists no other mechanism by which those individuals who do, in fact, act only in their own self-interest could be constrained to protect the majority." The society of TMIAH certainly contained such mechanisms:


1) "Stu, is no rape in Luna. None. Men won’t permit. If rape had been involved, they wouldn’t have bothered to find a judge and all men in earshot would have scrambled to help."
2) “All our customs work that way. If you’re out in field and a cobber needs air, you lend him a bottle and don’t ask cash. But when you’re both back in pressure again, if he won’t pay up, nobody would criticize if you eliminated him without a judge. But he would pay; air is almost as sacred as women. If you take a new chum in a poker game, you give him air money. Not eating money; can work or starve. If you eliminate a man other than self-defense, you pay his debts and support his kids, or people won’t speak to you, buy from you, sell to you.”

3) But we figure this way: If a man is killed, either he had it coming and everybody knows it
—usual case—or his friends will take care of it by eliminating man who did it. Either way, no problem. Nor many eliminations. Even set duels aren’t common.”
“‘His friends will take care of it.’ Mannie, suppose those young people had gone ahead? I have no friends here.”
“Was reason I agreed to judge. While I doubt if those kids could have egged each other into it, didn’t want to, take chance. Eliminating a tourist could give our city a bad name.”
“Does it happen often?”
“Can’t recall has ever happened. Of course may have been made to look like accident. A new chum is accident-prone; Luna is that sort of place.

To put it simply, the society of TMIAH certainly contained mechanisms which placed constraints on the actions of individuals. To state it more clearly, there were no laws which protected the population from anti-social individuals, but there were definite customs which did so.

However, some will recoil in horror at the thought of such vigilante actions(see Definitions). I would suggest that vigilante actions in the context of societies which do have laws would indeed be illegal behavior and would be subject to legal constraints and consequences. It must be emphasized, however, from the quotations given here, that Loonie Society was not a society based on law, and therefore such behavior in the context of Luna's society was just as appropriate as would be that carried out by law enforcement agencies in a society based on law.

As I said in the beginning, it is clear that De La Paz recognizes that constraints exist and that a person will be answerable to these constraints. It is obvious that because of the hierarchy of constraints that there will be areas where the demands of one level come into conflict with the demands of some other. This is shown most clearly in the quotation from Starship Troopers:


"....and must correctly describe the hierarchy of survival, note the motivations at each level, and resolve all conflicts"
This, I suggest, is where the notion of rational anarchy is grounded. It is anarchy because it is the individual, not the state or government, who must and does decide. In order to decide morally, the individual must attempt to "correctly describe the hierarchy of survival, note the motivations at each level, and resolve all conflicts". The resolution of the conflicts requires that the demands of some levels are subjugated to the demands of higher levels, a very simple case being when a mother or father gives up his life to protect the children. In a lawful society, desires for justice or revenge are given over to the state rather than being performed by the individual(4)(7). Note, however, that should an individual make the choice to fulfill that desire personally, then he is answerable to the state and its laws(6). In Luna, he would be answerable to custom.

Now, most emphatically and categorically , I am stating that this is not to say that all decisions are made rationally in the sense of being objective and carefully thought out as to the consequences. Many decisions can be and are made irrationally, that is, without thinking or without a realization that the person is responsible for the consequences. The main point is that every individual does, indeed, make all decisions, rationally or irrationally, in the context of the constraints surrounding him. Rational anarchy is simply the recognition of this reality. As De La Paz said:


“My point is that one person is responsible. Always. If H-bombs exist—and they do—some man controls them. In terms of morals there is no such thing as a ‘state.’ Just men. Individuals. Each responsible for his own acts.”
To me it is obvious that such a truth applies not only to a truly anarchic society such as that of Luna, but to any society, any time and any place; in feudal societies, monarchies, democracies, or dictatorships. We are all individuals, and we all constantly make individual choices about our actions, but we are constrained by those principles and rules which are a part of our existence and which we have individually chosen to accept. Yes, even in an totally oppressed society, the choice is made to accept the oppression or fight against it, knowing what the consequences will be. Accept the oppression and all conflicts at lower levels are automatically resolved; you don't fight City Hall. Fight against it and you may pay the ultimate; "Give me liberty or give me Death"

Aside from the fact that this theme appears in many other works, there is some indication that Heinlein actually believed personally in the concept that all decisions are made by the individual. In This I Believe(5), he said:


I believe in the honest craft of workmen. Take a look around you. There never were enough bosses to check up on all that work. From Independence Hall to the Grand Coulee Dam, these things were built level and square by craftsmen who were honest in their bones.
This is the essence of the "anarchy" in which all men live.



Notes

Definitions
alt.fan.heinlein selected postings

(1) THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS
© 1966 by Robert A. Heinlein
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 66-15582

(2)STARSHIP TROOPERS
An Ace Book / published by arrangement with G. P. Putnam’s Sons
PRINTING HISTORY
G. P. Putnam’s Sons hardcover edition published 1959
Berkeley edition / May 1968
Ace edition / May 1987
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1959 by Robert A. Heinlein.

(3) It is my opinion, that Heinlein believed, or at least hoped, that such a theory might be possible even it had not yet been achieved. I suggest that Heinlein may have thought that such a mathematically verifible theory might be based on Korzybski's theories, outlined in his book

Author: Korzybski, Alfred, 1879-1950.
Title: Science and sanity; an introduction to non-Aristotelian systems and general semantics.
Edition: Hardcover 5th edition (January 1995)
Published by: Inst of General Semantics; ISBN: 0937298018

(4) In this context, it is useful to note that De La Paz implies that the individual still shares the responsibility, and blame, for such actions carried out in his name by legal authorities.


"He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame . . . as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else."
A concept not given much weight in our contemporary society.

(5)Originally recorded for the Edward R. Murray television show, This I Believe, in 1952 and reprinted in:
REQUIEM
Copyright © 1992 by Yoji Kondo
Cover art by Pat Morrissey
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, N.Y. 10010
Tor is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
ISBN: 0-812-51391-6
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 91-38909
First edition: February 1992
First mass market printing August 1994
Printed in the United States of America
See Also: http://heinleinsociety.org/rah/thisibelieve.html

(6) It is interesting to note that our language implies the place of society in general with respect to that of state, as we use the phrase "pay one's debt to society", not "pay one's debt to the government", the latter being reserved for taxes.

(7)Our legal system will accept self-defense as valid, but how often does it accept a personal defense of family or other group as valid? I don't know, but suspect that it is much less often than that of self-defense.

(8) People also react negatively to the concept of anarchy, because of the lack of the benefits other than protection which are to be gained when efforts and resources are directed and controlled by a higher level of authority than the individual. I accept that this is a valid and desirable situation. But I do not think that such an argument is appropriate to this discussion as I do not believe that De La Paz was actually trying to create or believed in anarchy in its classical definition.

These arn't lessons i've leant at all.... Disagree totally

1 - the people are unhappy and want change
"Some" of the people. Others don't

2 - the current political process has failed with all political parties offering the same message
No they don't. And i don't think it has failed.

3 - only direct action works
Eh?

4 - leadership is required, horizontal decision making is too easily usurped by the political class and used to sew division and create argument.
Agree with you there. But, that is what we already have. Unless you are talking of the occupy lot which sounds like you are trying to start a revolution?

5 - money and credit should be eliminated
Who says? How the fuck are we going to buy things. I think very few people agree with this. Probably just the ones with no money.

6 - all banks need to be nationalised and wound up over a period of time
Why? Doubt you will find people agreeing with this.

7 - property should be under the control of the people not private ownership
Doubt you will find many people agreeing with this. Probably just people who don't own property (people who want stuff for free). The rest - the property owners - don't want their property took off them by the people who don't have property. So you are a bit in a stalemate there. Stalemate = no change.

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1 - the people are unhappy and want change
"Some" of the people. Others don't
>>> We are not interested in the ones that don't. They are sheep

2 - the current political process has failed with all political parties offering the same message
No they don't. And i don't think it has failed.
>>>> you are wrong, go read a book or better get on the streets

3 - only direct action works
Eh?
>>>> Obvious

4 - leadership is required, horizontal decision making is too easily usurped by the political class and used to sew division and create argument.
Agree with you there. But, that is what we already have. Unless you are talking of the occupy lot which sounds like you are trying to start a revolution?
>>> Well we need a revolution

5 - money and credit should be eliminated
Who says? How the fuck are we going to buy things. I think very few people agree with this. Probably just the ones with no money.
>>>> Money is an invention of Jews designed to concentrate wealth, we don't need it.

6 - all banks need to be nationalised and wound up over a period of time
Why? Doubt you will find people agreeing with this.
>>>> Who cares what jewish bankers think ?

7 - property should be under the control of the people not private ownership
Doubt you will find many people agreeing with this. Probably just people who don't own property (people who want stuff for free). The rest - the property owners - don't want their property took off them by the people who don't have property. So you are a bit in a stalemate there. Stalemate = no change.
>>>> Who cares if people agree ? We need to do what is best for society, not what a 'few people' want.